


Escape

by Bluewolf458



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen, Sentinel Thursday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-14 23:08:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11793363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: Young Blair escapes from Naomi's influence





	Escape

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Sentinel Thursday, prompt 'trapped'

Escape

by Bluewolf

Sometimes it was inconvenient to have a conscience.

Yes, when your conscience made you feel guilty about doing something wrong, about deliberately harming someone, having a conscience was good; it kept you honest, kept you on the right side of the law... though sometimes what Naomi's conscience told her was wrong put her on the wrong side of the law.

Blair had never forgotten the time she had been arrested for taking part in a protest involving a landowner who had decided to fell an entire fifty-acre forest - he had never known how the organizer of the protest had learned about 'the planned destruction of such a valuable part of the ecosystem, that provided habitat for millions of animals, birds and insects, all to make money for someone who already had far more of it than he needed'.

Naomi had debated taking Blair with her, to let him see the value of making a protest, but eventually decided that, at six, he was just a little too young - the day of the planned protest, the day the felling was to start, was cold and very wet, so she asked a friend - who, eight months pregnant and with year-old twins, had reluctantly decided not to participate - to take him for the day.

Nobody knew who had told the police about the planned protest, but they had arrived in force and the protesters found themselves trapped, arrested, and removed from the scene before the felling began.

All Blair really knew at the time was that he stayed with Aunt Rita for several days instead of just one day.

The only one of the arrested protesters who went to trial was Morgan Travers, who had organized everything; the others were released after a week.

By then the media had jumped on the story and revealed that the forest was being felled because the trees were diseased, and the owner felt that felling and burning was the best way to stop the virus causing the disease spreading - and far from making a profit, he was losing money because of it.

Naomi professed herself unconvinced, but she couldn't deny the owner was indeed destroying the felled timber, and far from making money, _was_ losing money. Quite a lot of money. And felling the trees before burning them, instead of just 'accidentally' setting fire to the forest - which would have been cheaper for him - was more ecologically friendly.

It was one of Blair's earliest memories, and it had taught him a lesson he had never forgotten - that there are two sides to everything, and that even his mother could get it wrong.

His life for the next ten years was a weird mixture of settled and moving. It wasn't something he particularly enjoyed. Occasionally Naomi fell in love and moved in with someone; some of the men involved seemed to like him and over the years he saw three World Series and five NBA playoff games. Of course, those were the games of choice of the men who took him; he never developed much interest in baseball, deciding, by the time he was ten, that basketball was more exciting, especially after meeting Orvelle Wallace and getting his autograph.

But despite the occasional high point, for those ten years he felt trapped by Naomi's lifestyle. He knew Naomi loved him, and he certainly loved her... but their needs in life were completely incompatible. She wanted a life without responsibility, while he wanted to do something more meaningful with his life than wander around the world with no real objectives.

He got the chance to escape when he was sixteen; young though he was, he got a scholarship to Rainier University, to study anthropology.

The day he started his studies there, Blair knew he was finally free... while at the same time knowing that Naomi believed he was trapped into living a conventional lifestyle.


End file.
